CHAPTER NINE
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HE DID THAT on purpose. Rolled his sleeves so ivory cashmere kissed his elbows, forcing Adam to leer at those muscled, long forearms. The black hair looked as thick as a bear rug, causing his jaw to lock up.
He didn’t mean to look the first time, and he sure as hell wasn’t watching as the man carefully slipped on latex gloves and stood before his pot.
“On your mark,” the mayor called out, stopwatch at the ready.
Adam squared up, hands prepared to reach for the first stick.
“Get set…”
His mom finished waving to her friends in the crowd.
“Wait. Where’s your partner?”
“Partner?” Raj squeaked out and turned to the empty spot beside him.
Adam missed it at first, but that was right, the blond himbo was nowhere to be found.
“Trouble in paradise?” he asked more to himself, but Raj shot him a look telling him his arrow struck true.
“We tag team. One person dips, the other decorates and seals it up. But if you want to try to do it all on your own…”
“Here, dearie.” The mayor’s wife, Marta, slid in beside him. “I’ll give you a helping hand.”
“Thank you,” he said with a nod.
So that’s how they’re going to play it. While the mayor could get him the movie night, or the best spot in the parade, even he couldn’t conjure up more apples than were on the table.
No matter how much they helped their golden boy across the finishing line, they didn’t stand a chance against their true king.
“Okay, doing this again. On your mark, get set…apple!” the mayor shouted. He made a loud bang noise because using an actual starter pistol would be insane.
With the dexterity of Vlad himself, Adam twisted a stick off the table, impaled it into a juicy red apple, and dipped it all into the caramel.
Using his patented two-shake method, he removed the excess then passed it on to his mother.
She ladled a rainbow of sprinkles over the caramel with care before tying it up in cellophane.
He let himself get a good ten in, the pace steady and true, before glancing over at his competition. Seven finished apples sat on Raj’s table. “This is rather unfair,” Adam said aloud. He dipped two apples at once and passed both to his mother. She held them for a second in confusion.
When no one exclaimed, “What is?” he answered for them, “I’ve won the past three years.” In his element, Adam helped sprinkle up his next apple with his mother, then dropped it in the cellophane. Over the crinkle, he nearly missed Raj’s cutting comment.
“We’ll see.”
He wanted to laugh. The man was already three apples behind, and the gap was only growing. “Are you certain about that, Mr. Choudhary? Seems you’re having a sticky situation.”
“I am…” Caramel dripped off the apple and onto the hot plate. The sugar burst into a quick blue flame, causing the man to stagger back and fall another behind. “I’ve come back from worse,” he said and impaled two apples at once.
Adam matched him, working quicker than ever. “Are you trying to act all mysterious so I’ll be distracted by your sad backstory?”
“Nope. Are you trying to act all snobbish so I’ll lose my nerve?”
“It’s not an act!”
“Chrissy!” Adam chastised the woman in the crowd. “Who’s working the front counter?”
Her answer was to give him an exhausted flop of her arm and wander off. Though he noticed it was in the opposite direction from his store. Great. Well, in just another twenty minutes, and he could go back to selling dreams and nightmares to the people of Anoka.
“Look at them go,” the mayor shouted to the gathering crowd. “I see ten on the Smiths’ table and, wow, a whole twenty-five apples in front of Mr. Chowdery.”
“Twenty-six and seven!”
Adam’s head swiveled at the proclamation. Raj slammed both apples down with a fat grin on his face. How? He’d been behind and he’d… Adam did a quick rundown of the apples. They were losing? No.
“Ma!” he shouted. “Second gear.”
“Oh, dear.”
Glaring across the way, Adam started double-dipping the apples so fast that caramel flew across the table. The nearly-boiling sugar dripped down his bare arms, but he didn’t even flinch. His focus was on the man beside him, their eyes constantly meeting even as they tried to look away.
“I fear we’re running out of room,” his mother called.
She held a pile of cellophane circles with nowhere to put them.
Nearly the whole table was claimed by finished apples.
Smiling to himself at easily topping his previous record, Adam looked to his right and saw the same problem with his competitor.
“I’ll move the pot,” he said. Using the apples, he shoved the caramel two inches toward the edge of the table. “There, that should…”
The shadows moved, and caramel galumphed inside of the other crock pot sliding along the way.
Where there’d once been a good two feet between them, now there was one.
Raj cast a challenging glare Adam’s way.
Then he dipped his pinkie across his eyebrows, highlighting that damn thick forearm.
The stick snapped in Adam’s hand, and he looked away.
“Fifteen minutes,” the mayor shouted.
“I need more apples!” Adam called to the mayor.
“Me too,” his competitor added.
“Wow. The vigor these two are showing for charity is impressive. Bring in another bushel!” The mayor waved over their volunteers, who slapped the boxes down at Adam’s and Raj’s feet.
Rather than take the time to lay the apples out, Adam stabbed his little sticks into the first bit of white flesh he could find.
Juice dripped down his fingers and forearms. As it hit the caramel, a hiss boiled, but he couldn’t bother with that.
“Adam…” his mother cried out.
“Moving again.” He gave her another three inches. And once again, Raj did the same.
They’d come so close together, Adam could feel the breeze of his arm flapping away in a panic. Two at a time wasn’t good enough. Adam upped it by doing four at once. “You’re forgetting the sprinkles,” he taunted his competitor. “That’ll cost you.”
“Damn it.” Raj cursed. He had to put down his apples to help the bamboozled Marta struggling to keep up. Poor thing was redder than the red delicious on Adam’s stick. Scooping his hands through the purple and green jimmies, Raj gave him all the time Adam needed to pass him.
“You’ve got this, right? Keep going. You’re doing great,” Raj cheered to the mayor’s wife before returning right next to Adam.
“Son…”
“Keep at it, Mom. Just a few more!” he cheered her on, too focused on his job to look over.
“At least I can dunk them in caramel.” Raj sniffed as he slammed six into the pot at once. “Yours are barely coated.”
“How dare you question my ability to…” Adam’s manic energy paused, and he stared at the apples in his fingers. The caramel only reached a quarter of the way up. Damn it. How many did he screw up?
That can be fixed later. Double dipping, he made sure to drown the fruit before passing them off. A little scoff crawled down his spine like a fingernail scratch. He shuddered and reached for his apples at the same time Raj shoved his stick into the box.
“What are you doing?” Adam shouted.
“Those are mine,” Raj insisted, stealing one of the apples.
“No, they’re mine.” Adam shoved him aside with his hip and loaded a dozen into his arms. Bypassing the sticks, he dumped them into his crock pot and stirred them around.
Stabbing into the top, he exhumed one for the sprinkles.
Then that bastard reached over and shoved one of his sticks into Adam’s apple.
“What the hell?” Adam cried out. “You’re cheating!” He lunged, grabbing Raj’s bare forearm.
“No. You stole mine. I’m taking it back!” He wrenched his arm forward, causing the apple to sway on the stick. Adam reached out to catch it. A breeze kicked up, and the fruit fell. It bounced on the table, then rolled through the grass.
“My mistake. I guess it was yours,” Raj declared, and he bent over to his side.
Fuming, Adam glared at the sharp sticks laid out on the table. The mayor paced around, counting out the last few minutes. No one cared that he cheated. No one cared that everyone was conniving together to take away his crown.
Clenching his hand around a stick, Adam leaned over Raj’s body. His chest pushed on the soft back, all those muscles pinching his flesh to his ribs as he reached to stab an apple.
“What in the…?” Raj cried out.
Adam managed to impale three apples before he leaped back to his spot.
“Those are mine!”
“It’s payment for what you stole, with interest.”
“I didn’t steal anything. You stole from me first.” Raj lunged for the apples, but Adam managed to stick one in his crock pot.
Dangling the other two to the side, he snarled. “Like hell I did. You snuck in under my nose and took mine.”
“You’re not god’s gift to caramel apples,” Raj shouted. He dived down for the apple out of the crock pot. Adam tried to stop him, but Raj was quick. He grabbed onto the edge of the pot, causing the caramel to leap up the side until some slopped out.
Boiling in rage, Adam lunged for Raj’s pot of caramel. He pulled on it, trying to wrench it over to his side, but the plug caught. “I am the Halloween king!” Adam screamed, giving one hard yank.
An extension cord ripped out of the wall, snaked its way around the table leg, and snagged.
He kept pulling, not realizing how much danger he was in until the whole thing buckled.
The first table crashed to the ground. People shrieked, trying to catch it, but it was too late.
Their crock pot flew, turning twenty pounds of ceramic and boiling sugar into a cannonball.
It landed dead center on Raj’s table, crumpling it.
All of his finished apples tumbled off, rolling through the muddy ground.
Panting, Adam tried to get a grip on things, but the crock pot he stole was still in play. The caramel leaped into the air. His eyes went wide as he watched it arc toward his hapless mother. “Mom!” he cried, diving to get her out of the way.